Parliament without everyone fighting like cats and dogs and otters and bears and beavers and…
Kumamon
Organizing committee seems to have a problem with a huge clumsy bear running around with an open flame.
Tonko House will take responsibility for bringing Kumamon’s exploits overseas in a future animation project.
Call me old fashioned but I remember when mascots were meant to be cute, not demons spawned by human weakness or yam ninjas.
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A wave of support for the people of Kumamoto has come out of China in the form of warmhearted illustrations featuring the local mascot Kumamon.
Kumamoto City, the capital of the Kyushu prefecture of the same name, has always been in a bit of an awkward position. It doesn’t really have the metropolitan appeal of Tokyo, or the world-famous nature and hot springs of northern Japan, or even the tropical island allure of Okinawa. Plus, it’s a heck of a long way away from the capital. So why would someone decide to visit Kumamoto?
The answer just might be fashion. For the past several years, Kumamoto has steadily been building itself up as the fashion capital of Japan. Now, it’s come to the point where some would say that if you want to see the future of Japan’s fashion, don’t look at Tokyo, but look at Kumamoto instead.
Has Tokyo, the fashion king of Japan, finally been dethroned?
Did you know that actor Keanu Reeves has his own motorcycle production company, Arch Motorcycle? We had no idea either, until he made an impromptu appearance at the Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture for the 8 Hours Motorcycle Endurance World Championship on July 25, test-driving his very own KRGT-1 Superbike.
Oh, and he also met Kumamoto Prefecture’s beloved yuru-kyara Kumamon at the same time!
Kumamon is the official mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture in southern Japan. Since his debut in 2010, he’s become wildly popular, appearing in all kinds of media and lending his face to uncountable products. By some estimates, he’s pulling down hundreds of billions of yen a year. He’s given a guest lecture at Harvard, despite being mute, and has even met the imperial couple.
But despite this blessed existence, even mascots have bad days. And being in the public eye, those bad days are immortalized on film.
The Kyaraben trend is still going strong in Japan, and even though winter has prompted some to make the temporary switch to deco-nabe, the demand for adorable packed lunches shows no signs of abating. Today we’d like to take a look back over the best of the past year’s Kyaraben. What can we learn about 2014 in Japan from studying these perfect works of edible art?
Have you ever wondered how Kumamon suddenly burst into the spotlight back in 2011? It was the result of his victory in the national mascot character contest, the Yuru-kyara Grand Prix. The contest has been held every year since 2010 and Kumamon was the first major winner in 2011.
Voting for the annual contest runs from August to October every year and people are eligible to vote for their favorite character (usually the one representing their town or prefecture) once a day for the duration of the contest. Well, the results for the 2014 contest are finally in, and it looks like a certain entrant took the win by a nose.
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